Thursday, June 28, 2007

Since my last post about bottled water, there have been some new developments. First and foremost, Tom (stage name T.L.) released a remix of the classic Biggie Smalls song "Juicy" - sample a lyric:

The Volvic and Acqua Panna keep me pissyGirls used to diss meNow they write letters cause they miss meBirthdays was the worst daysNow we sip Feej when we thirst-ay

----------------------------------So the "Juicy" remix was playing in my head in the shower this morning. I step out to dry off, walk to my window, and what do I see? A sign from the heavens...

"Tanks Gawd!!" I exclaimed. But before I went so far as to buy that truckload of Fiji bottles, I decided I'd listen to a debate over the societal benefit of Fiji water. On the Con side was a growing number of journalists and environmental activists. On the Pro side was Beneficent Allah. Here is how it went down--

Pablo Paster, Treehugger.com, CON:

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles' journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation--which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity--something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from "one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth," as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze.

Each water bottler has its own version of this oxymoron: that something as pure and clean as water leaves a contrail.

Beneficent Allah, beneficentallah.blogspot.com, PRO:

Feej is Straight Ballin', yo,Espesh from tha Who-Fo!

----------------------------------------------------------

Well, as you can see for yourselves, the winner of the debate was obvious. I bought the truckload of Fiji, and I'm sippin' one now 'cause I'm thirs-tay. The only sad part of this whole saga is that Biggie's lips never got to feel the refreshment of a cold Feej, since the company only started shipping to the U.S. in late 1997. R.I.P., Biggie -- I'll pour a couple millileters out for mah dead homie right now...

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Right when Hurricane Katrina hit, I remember Tom harping on the idea that all of the New Orleans residents in the Lower 9th Ward should have had insurance. As insurance currently works, you would get back enough money to cover the costs of your house, possessions, etc., but it would still suck for a hurricane to tear down your house.

But we were recently discussing the idea of having insurance that paid back more than just the bare bones- it would pay you enough so that you'd be indifferent between a hurricane happening and one not happening. The newscaster would announce a hurricane warning and you'd be like (sarcastic voice) "Oh no! PLEASE don't let that HURRICANE hit, I'm SOOOO scared!"

This concept could be expanded even further; you'd get insured for any possible bad thing that could happen, and then you'd be completely fearless. "Oh, Mr. Bad Man, DON'T SODOMIZE me! You have AIDS too, oh NOW I'M REALLY FRIGHTENED". "Where's this train going? AUSCHWITZ? Nooo, PLEASE don't send me to AUSCHWITZ (wink at camera)" Come to think of it, that last one would make a good ad for Allstate Holocaust Insurance- "You're in good hands with Allstate"

While out on the Vineyard this weekend, I could barely make out a mystical figure in the distance, on the waves. He was like a ghost, not a fully solid form. I looked closer, and closer, until finally I had a moment of recognition. It was John Kerry, and he was windsurfing--

"Ha Ha Ha! Fuck you America, I don't care anymore - I'll windsurf as much as I want!" screamed the Kerry-apparition. The Kerry apparition then bought a garlic press at Williams - Sonoma and

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Despite not having been hit on the head, I have a very specific form of Amnesia of late. What happened is that one day I woke up and I was not sure whether I usually washed my hands with soap after urinating or whether I just used water. So I ask you, dear readers, to either remind me of what my long-standing practice is, or (more likely) suggest what it should be in the future. I leave my fate in your hands....

Monday, June 18, 2007

sorry to keep talking about the middle east and freedom, I just had to point out this Weather.com table for Baghdad's weather next week. After this I promise a return to posts about more important things like bottled water (i have a follow up post in the works!) Take a close look:

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Apropos of something Beneficent Allah touched on in a recent post, BA is right that Fiji is the ballinest water. But back in the day the ballinest water used to be Evian. Evian was de rigeur at all the fine restaurants. Evian ads were all over TV telling us how sophisticated we were for drinking Evian. I remember my father regaling me with stories of his millionaire clients decadently bathing themselves in Evian. But now, Evian is an also-ran in the water contest. Feej is obviously better, but - dare i say it - so is Volvic! What happened to Evian? Perhaps our bloggeurs a Paris - AG, Rich, Tom, and ARod - can figure out this mystery...

Thursday, June 07, 2007

This is unbelievable; it's downright intellectual property theft. One of my first posts ever began with the words, "What happened to you, Lindsay?" and then juxtaposed a picture of Lindsay Lohan as a cute (I wrote "statutory rape-able") 12-year-old with a picture of her now as a mess. And now People magazine has used this very paradigm for its cover story. It just goes to show you, the blogosphere is always ahead of the mainstream media. Judge for yourselves...

Monday, June 04, 2007

I know Tom hasn't been posting much lately, but since his long absence from the blogosphere has made him a bit frightened of jumping right back in the pool (he is currently standing in thigh-deep water, waiting to get his junk wet, if you want to continue the metaphor), I have appointed myself as his blog proxy. And so without further ado, I bring to you....

The First Annual Tom Community Service Award. And the Tom Community Service Award goes to... JAMES SIMONS. If you read that Wikipedia page, you will learn that Mr. Simons is a major philanthropist to causes such as Autism research, education and the mathematical sciences. But that is not why he is receiving this award.

Mr. Simons is receiving this award from Tom because he was the highest-paid hedge fund manager of 2006, taking home $1.7 billion. Tom asks you, dear readers, what could be a bigger community service than making the markets more efficient? Answer- nothing! Now if only Mr. Simons would stop taking some of his money out of the markets to pay for this inefficient research and charity spending (we all know the market will take care of any diseases, scientific research and any other social ill or need- DUH!), he would have this award locked up for years to come! And as Beneficent Allah might put it, being a balla is a service to the community.

We asked a handful of bloggers what books they’ve enjoyed most over the last few months, and why. Their choices — from best sellers to poetry collections to a philosophy of science — are idiosyncratic and instructive.

“Hot Italian Dish: A Cookbook” by Victoria Gotti: It’s hilarious in a “Catch-22” way, but with an undercurrent of sadness that works counterpoint to all the absurdity.

These are both wonderful “summer reads.”

Dan Berger

Joseph and Hadassah Lieberman, “An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah's Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaign” For a long while now, Senator Lieberman has been writing some of the greatest poetry-cum-prose you can find in American literature. “An Amazing Adventure” does to the contemporary political-industrial complex what James Agee did to poverty — it reacts passionately and lyrically (and idiosyncratically) to a sociopolitical abomination. This book, while angry and sorrowful and bewildered, has humor, constant levity and candor, and countless moments of incredible beauty.

Alex Jacob

“The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. The kind of work that makes you gently worry for the author’s mental health. This collection of stories manages to crawl back on my nightstand no matter how many times I try to return it to the stacks. Subjects include a girlfriend with some glandular difficulties — she turns into a fat, short, hairy man at night — and parents who shrink as their son grows. Brown lives in The Vatican City, a country with its share of grief and uncertainty, but his tales are oddly buoyant, not to mention supremely addictive.

Tom Lehman

“A Night Without Armor: Poems” by Jewel. Jewel, one of the most dizzyingly accomplished of our writers, delivers that rarely spotted animal, a literary drama about families that is also a page-turner. Few writers can tread the oft-explored terrain of class and race with the sophistication, grace and wit of this author. “A Night Without Armor” explores the difficult friendship between two Barnard students in the 1960s; it also contains some of the most moving and devastating prison scenes to ever appear in American literature.

“Naming and Necessity” by Saul A. Kripke. One of the world's literary masterpieces. Probably most of us come to feel what the text suggests: that we contain more potential lives than real life permits us to realize; that imagination is both blessing and curse; that idealism offers both vindication and mockery; and that art's particularity liberates such generalizations (and, perhaps, people themselves) from the empire of platitude.

Rich Berger

“Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health” by L. Ron Hubbard (coming this fall). This brilliant portrait of an artist as a dying young man fictionalizes the last days of Stephen Crane and also contains a novel Crane never quite got around to — the chronicle of a disastrous love affair between a wealthy banker and a “painted boy” in turn-of-the-century New York. With a sure hand Hubbard ranges over the twin tragedies of love and death, while gleefully roasting literary luminaries like Henry James and Joseph Conrad.